tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51434443986861955162015-08-01T10:38:23.681-05:00Millenarian IconoclasmTearing down the ideas of millenarian religionsDark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-61897642656615722362013-08-06T23:10:00.000-05:002013-08-06T23:10:48.386-05:00twitter: slavery conversation<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/johnzwicker1">johnzwicker1</a> can you say "Slavery is categorically immoral?" If not, you have NO moral authority @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/321635198288674816">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/colddimsum">colddimsum</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a> What kind of a question is that?</p>&mdash; John Zwicker (@JohnZwicker1) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnZwicker1/status/321650331933081601">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/johnzwicker1">johnzwicker1</a> can you condemn Leviticus 25:46 (take them as slaves forever) as immoral pronouncement or not?@<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/321652285337903104">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/colddimsum">colddimsum</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a> Viewed through the HOly Wounds of Jesus, what do you think?</p>&mdash; John Zwicker (@JohnZwicker1) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnZwicker1/status/321653127285723136">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/johnzwicker1">johnzwicker1</a> For to name slavery a sin is to name your God a sinner, isn't that correct? @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/321653760818556929">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/johnzwicker1">johnzwicker1</a> Then say "the mere tolerance of Slavery is a sin as is the commandment", can you? @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/321654430158184448">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/colddimsum">colddimsum</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a> Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth? Discuss, yes. Speak for you, no.</p>&mdash; John Zwicker (@JohnZwicker1) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnZwicker1/status/321655545595559936">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/johnzwicker1">johnzwicker1</a> I'm not the one experiencing the level of cognitive dissonance that you are evidencing @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/321655407032549376">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/colddimsum">colddimsum</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/leahntorres">leahntorres</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/attwnministry">attwnministry</a> Sorry, what ever your name is, I'm not an intellectual &amp; thus do not grasp your duplicitous insult</p>&mdash; John Zwicker (@JohnZwicker1) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnZwicker1/status/321656257780006914">April 9, 2013</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-25111885209619045922013-08-04T16:48:00.007-05:002013-08-04T16:48:49.142-05:00Faith Healing... Child Murder...Bible verses on Faith Healing<br /><br /><b>Luke 8:50</b> <br /><blockquote>Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed."</blockquote><br /><b>Psalm 30:2</b><br /><blockquote>LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.</blockquote><br /><b>Psalm 41:3</b> <br /><blockquote>The LORD sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.</blockquote><br /><b>Psalm 147:3</b> <br /><blockquote>He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.</blockquote><br /><b>Isaiah 53:5</b> <br /><blockquote>But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.</blockquote><br /><b>Isaiah 58:8</b> <br /><blockquote>Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.</blockquote><br /><b>Jeremiah 17:14</b> <br /><blockquote>Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.</blockquote><br /><b>Matthew 8:8</b> <br /><blockquote>The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed."</blockquote><br /><b>Matthew 8:16</b> <br /><blockquote>When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.</blockquote><br /><b>Matthew 9:35</b> <br /><blockquote>Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.</blockquote><br /><b>Mark 5:34</b> <br /><blockquote>He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."</blockquote><br /><b>Luke 5:17</b> <br /><blockquote>One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick.</blockquote><br />One product of superstition and <i>magical thinking</i>, when people take it seriously, are things like <a href="http://www.masskids.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=161&Itemid=165">Cases of Childhood Deaths Due to Parental Religious Objection to Necessary Medical Care</a>.<br /><br />See some more accounts of Faith Healing at <a href="http://whatstheharm.net/faithhealing.html">What's the Harm in Faith Healing</a>.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-60967432379874904562013-08-04T12:55:00.000-05:002013-08-04T12:55:01.755-05:00Rules of the Code<b>Throw The First One Away</b><br />You will understand the problem much better after your first attempt.<br />(<i>corollary: they never let you throw the first one away</i>)<br /><br /><b>Fail Quickly</b><br />This makes '<i>Throw The First One Away</i>' less painful and improves testability<br /><br /><b>Minimize Coupling, Maximize Cohesion</b><br />It is better to reduce the amount of dependency between modules to make future changes and adaptations easier. Also, it is better to increase the relatedness of each function within a module.<br /><br /><b>Don't Be Afraid To Learn Something</b><br />And don't be afraid to 'Google' it! Many times people hesitate to move forward productively because they feel that they don't know something - a little hubris isn't always a bad thing, dive in and '<i>Fail Quickly</i>'.<br /><br /><b>Make It Work First, Then Make It Fast</b><br />Goes with '<i>Fail Quickly</i>', you won't have wasted that time when you have to backtrack.<br /><br /><b>Data Design &gt; Code Design</b><br />Data Driven Design + Little Languages = greater expressive power <br />APIs are little languages too, so learn some language design<br /><br /><b>Document "Why"</b><br />i = 2; // set i to 2 &lt;&lt;&lt; THIS IS NOT HELPING<br />i = 2; // first two elements of the array are reserved for...<br /><br /><b>Save Early, Save Often</b><br />Where did my code go? corollary: Learn how to use a source repository<br /><br /><b>Requirements! Requirements! Requirements!</b><br />Avoid <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow">spherical cows</a>. Understand what is actually needed early on, don't code yourself into a corner either as Requirement can &amp; will change.<br /><br /><b>Indirection</b><br />"<i>All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection</i>" -- David Wheeler<br />"<i>except for the problem of too many layers of indirection</i>" -- Kevlin Henney<br /><br /><b>Design in Error Handling</b><br />Don't leave error handling and reporting to the end, include it in the design and understand the Requirements.<br /><br />#<i>CoderProductivity</i>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-6040330984625317082013-08-04T12:02:00.002-05:002013-08-04T12:02:46.584-05:00If you can't answer these don't EVEN try to lie to me about Evolution...(1) Which specific allele mutation(s) enabled transport of citrate under aerobic conditions in a strain of Escherichia coli? (name the allele(s) and give details of the exact mutation(s) observed)<br /><br />(2a) What published, peer-reviewed scientific study looked specifically at the theory of universal common ancestry and what were the findings?<br /><br />(2b) (trick question:) Where is the peer-reviewed refutation of the above study? <br /><br />(3a) What species is the best candidate for the Most Recent Common Ancestor between Homo sapiens (humans) and Pan troglodytes (chimpanzees)?<br /><br />(3b) How many millions of years is the best estimate for that Most Recent Common Ancestor?<br /><br />(3c) How many years ago did that species die out?<br /><br />(3d) When do modern Pan troglodytes first make an appearance?<br /><br />(3e) Did human beings evolve from ANY member of Pan troglodyte? [Hint: the answer is no]<br /><br />(3f) Repeat (3a-3e) above for Gorilla and Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus).<br /><br />(4a) How many published, peer-reviewed studies are there that address Evolutionary Theory? (pick a rough order of magnitude: 10? 100? 1000? 10000? 100,000? 1,000,000?)<br /><br />(4b) How many of those studies have you ACTUALLY bothered to read?<br /><br />(4c) How many of those did you ACTUALLY understand?(please cite the study, give your interpretation of key findings, and there will be follow-up questions)<br /><br /><br />Feel free to contribute enlightening examples<br /><br /><br />See Also: <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2011/01/christianatheist-pre-discussion.html">Christian/Atheist pre-discussion questionnaire</a>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-48011524929554948382013-06-16T09:28:00.000-05:002013-06-16T09:28:22.702-05:00Response: What Do Non-Christians Really Think of Us?RE: <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/what-do-non-christians-really-think-of-us-98064/">What Do Non-Christians Really Think of Us?</a><br /><br />The things raised in this article only scratch the surface because these objections apply to all groups, pretty much at equal rates, not just to Christians. I do not, cannot, and should not fault Christianity for the mere behavior of adherents. I'm only concerned when it is the religious institution acting as a body or when the actions are condoned or commanded by the religion.<br /><br />For example, I don't blame Christianity for priests who sexually abused children, but I DO blame the institutions that knowingly protected them. That goes for secular institutions as well.<br /><br />Rather, I look at Christianity itself - the commandments to genocide, the acts of infanticide, the explicit endorsement of slavery, the admonishment to give no thought to the morrow. And the astonishing level to which Christians will either ignore or lie about the BIble in order to protect their beliefs -- that raises the red flag for me.<br /><br />One example of this is William Lane Craig's appeal that we think of the poor Israeli soldiers who are having to slaughter the women and children of the Canaanites.<br /><br />When God supposedly commands Abraham to murder his son Isaac and he packs up the mule and heads to the mountain - this is seen as a wonderful and glorious display of Faith. And then Christians dare to condemn Andrea Yates when she says God told her to kill her children? How can they possibly claim to argue God didn't?<br /><br />I understand that we all have ideals of behavior that we fall short of upholding ourselves, I cannot judge anyone as anything other than an individual for that, but this is the kind of institutional hypocrisy that is bothersome to me because they are ignoring their common-sense moral compass that murdering innocent children is wrong when it comes to Biblical passages, which they excuse.<br /><br />After all, for Christians, this scapegoating human sacrifice of a Son was later carried out in the name of Jesus. I know it's difficult to hear but you worship a human sacrifice. And if you truly believe Jesus is God and didn't actually die and now sits at the Right Hand of God then what was the sacrifice exactly? Wouldn't Jesus, being God, already know of pain worse than any human scourge?<br /><br />Of course, we all know that Andrea Yates was delusional. And those of us who are now outside the 'belief structure' it is easy to see that either this story is allegorical or perhaps the acts of a delusional person who nearly committed a great evil.<br /><br />But whatever else they believe about it, Christians cannot escape that they believe in a 'God' who supposedly did command a man to murder his own son. It matters not that he stayed Abrahams hand in the end, a fundamental corruption of our inner moral compass is implanted.<br /><br />How many infants did Joshua slaughter with a sword at Jericho? Joshua 6 [but of course "All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury"]<br />How many infants were murdered in revenge of Amalek? 1 Samuel 15:2-3<br />How many infants drowned in the Flood? Genesis 6:1-9:17<br />How many children has god had torn into by bears? 2 Kings 2:23-24<br />How many infants & children has god had slain? Jeremiah 50:21-22<br />How many first-born infants died in Egypt so god could show off? Exodus 12:29-30<br />How many women were murdered, accused of being a witch? Exodus 22:18<br />How many children were stoned to death for breaking OT rules? Leviticus 20:9<br />How many people have been murdered because the bible commands it? 2 Chronicles 15:12-13<br /><br />Deuteronomy 7: When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them...nor shew mercy unto them<br /><br />Or the Holiness Code, Leviticus 25:44-46 in which non-Israelite slaves shall serve FOREVER - they were inheritable property even upon the owners death and could be beaten (Exodus 21:20-21) within the limit that they don't die within a day. If they suffer a few days and then die, that's ok, because they are just property.<br /><br />Manifest Destiny and the Requerimiento where God says we own this land and we will drive out, murder, or enslave any who stand in our way and don't convert to our religion are other faces of Christianity that Christians should reflect deeply upon.<br /><br />These are the aspects of Christianity that I find especially troubling (and most of these are in some way shared in other religions and even some non-religious movements). All calls to an exceptional identity share most of these issues - "join US and you'll be exceptional and will deserve and enjoy more rights and authority than outsiders".<br /><br />Prejudice, Ideology, Exceptionalism, Credulity, Superstitions - these are the root causes.<br /><br />I wonder if any Bible-believing Christians would be willing to be held to same standard the Bible holds others to in passages such as 1 Kings 18. If you cannot set Bull meat on fire with prayer should you be slaughtered? I find the very thought abhorrent but there it is in the BIble, again being promulgated as Glorious goodness itself, the very hand of God at work.<br /><br />By the time God is done, just by the explicit numbers in the Bible, God kills 2,821,364 people - and this number does NOT include the unnumbered cases such as the Flood or First Born.<br /><br />This is why I could not continue as a Christian, simply reading the Bible and being honest about the contents.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-4002725317447039232013-05-17T16:18:00.002-05:002013-05-17T16:18:16.806-05:00Mere Secularism?I’ll be a mere ‘secularist’ when, In The Name Of And Justified By Religion people STOP:<br /><ul><li>burning men and women to death as witches</li><li>beating gay people to death</li><li>pushing for legislation that would see gay people put to death</li><li>eschewing proper healthcare in favor of prayer and faith-healing</li><li>beating their children to death</li><li>flying planes into building</li><li>blowing themselves and others up</li><li>working to deny women or gay people rights</li><li>working to have the state violate women’s bodily autonomy</li><li>pushing their religious agenda into public schools or trying to take public funds to fund religious activities</li><li>justifying their wars</li></ul><br />Or pushing for other types of violations of bodily autonomy or empowered and informed consent in the absence of prior aggression (and given due process of law).<br /><br />Not a moment before then.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-41176335218215158242013-05-14T19:14:00.000-05:002013-05-14T20:33:24.636-05:00Philosophy Off The RailsThe <a href="http://philosophyotb.com/w/?page_id=2">self-proclaimed 'college professor'</a> over at their BLOG <a href="http://philosophyotb.com/w/?p=523">Philosophy Out of the Box (Why Atheism is Illogical. Part One: Atheism is a Belief and a Truth Claim)</a> has decided that, rather than lose the debate, they will just delete last response and block me, so I am reproducing them here for posterity (the first two as thumbnails, the last embedded as an image along with the referenced post that was also deleted by them).<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_G109Y0jy4/UZLStBBGosI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/8KfYT5ZKq34/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_G109Y0jy4/UZLStBBGosI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/8KfYT5ZKq34/s320/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-1.png" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-utETAWiHJwI/UZLStBe8lgI/AAAAAAAAAMM/oQKBKr0R76A/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-2.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-utETAWiHJwI/UZLStBe8lgI/AAAAAAAAAMM/oQKBKr0R76A/s320/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-2.png" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PgRjBZuwlE/UZLStJDrJ9I/AAAAAAAAAMI/PzoV6AiFbEY/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-3.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PgRjBZuwlE/UZLStJDrJ9I/AAAAAAAAAMI/PzoV6AiFbEY/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-3.png" /></a><!-- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PgRjBZuwlE/UZLStJDrJ9I/AAAAAAAAAMI/PzoV6AiFbEY/s320/philosophyotb-blog-atheism-response-3.png --><br /><br />And a fourth post they delete on another page that is referenced in the third post above:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HeOaD912cU8/UZLUGDt4GlI/AAAAAAAAAMk/5-luu4CmGLg/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-fails-again-atheist-def.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HeOaD912cU8/UZLUGDt4GlI/AAAAAAAAAMk/5-luu4CmGLg/s1600/philosophyotb-blog-fails-again-atheist-def.png" /></a><!-- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HeOaD912cU8/UZLUGDt4GlI/AAAAAAAAAMk/5-luu4CmGLg/s320/philosophyotb-blog-fails-again-atheist-def.png --><br /><br />The ????? is ἄθεος -- apparently his blog cannot handle Unicode.<br /><br />I welcome feedback on my arguments.<br /><br /><br />When asked about the <a href="http://philosophyotb.com/w/?p=523">arguments presented by 'college professor'</a>, Massimo Pigliucci (Professor of Philosophy at City University of New York, <a href="https://twitter.com/mpigliucci">@mpigliucci</a>) responded:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/levelsixtysix">levelsixtysix</a> Hmm, primary facie, it seems like bullshit to me...</p>&mdash; Massimo Pigliucci (@mpigliucci) <a href="https://twitter.com/mpigliucci/status/333737328591917057">May 13, 2013</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-90753640373507917892013-04-25T15:27:00.002-05:002013-04-25T15:31:15.946-05:00Stepford Heaven?'<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives">The Stepford Wives</a>' is a novel by Ira Levin in which the women in a suburban town are all unusually subservient to their husbands, with a sinister twist.<br /><br />And if we look at the Christian Bible we find this claim about Heaven:<br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21%3A4&version=DRA">Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.</a></blockquote><br />Now, for Christians who also believe that unredeemed 'sinners' will be put into <a href="http://bible.org/article/what-bible-says-about-hell">Eternal torment in Hell</a> this raises the specter of someone (say a parent) having a dearly loved one (such as a child) suffering eternal torment in Hell while they are without mourning or sorrow or tears for their loved one.<br /><br />This is why I sometimes refer to Christian Biblical Heaven as Stepford Heaven.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-32205821668700929492013-04-24T16:04:00.002-05:002013-04-24T16:04:07.746-05:00Are we 'wired' to believe in God?Popular stories like <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/belief-and-the-brains-god-spot-1641022.html">Belief and the brain's 'God spot'</a> overstate what the evidence actually suggests.<br /><br />Yes, people have experiences of the ecstatic, the noetic, and the ineffable (I have had these experiences personally) but they are NOT sufficient to induce a belief in a God unless you are already primed through cultural inculcation towards that belief.<br /><br />We know this because we have a vast history, amongst nearly EVERY native people, they had their shamans (pardon the misnomer) who would induce these experiences in themselves and sometimes in others through ritual, ascetic practices, drumming, dancing, meditation, breath control, fasting but far more frequently through the ingestion of various psychoactive substances such as Iboga, Peyote, Teonanácatl (magic mushrooms), Ska María Pastora (Salvia divinorum), Ayahuasca, Cannabis, Ololiuhqui (Morning Glory seeds), Kykeon (unknown, from the Eleusinian mysteries), Soma (unknown, from the Vedas) and claim to speak with 'spirits' and ancestors. These inventions did not have the properties of 'gods' until later as the concept emerged.<br /><br />People compete and 'mine is bigger than yours' is a game that goes far back, probably beyond the origin of the homo sapien, and the spirits of the water, the land, the air, the volcano, the earthquake, the thunder, and the rain grew with the telling. Well my volcano spirit and beat your water spirit and I'll prove it by defeating you in war... we win, our god escalates. It's not hard to imagine that someone along the way, like a schoolchild argument, claimed "mine is bigger to infinity".<br /><br />These things are experiences that people interpret in different ways depending on their culture. Not hardwired for God, but hardwired for fallacious thought, poor inference, false positives, and the misattribution of agency. These are the things that are scientifically confirmed.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-41078779996718309592013-04-20T09:01:00.002-05:002013-04-20T09:06:08.382-05:00Objective vs Subjective and MiscellaneityThere are a few common misconceptions I would like to address...<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/tootingrebecca">tootingrebecca</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/cilliandaly">cilliandaly</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/anerobica">anerobica</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> Research to know that pain is felt subjectively but has no objective reality? Google!</p>&mdash; Xmas Man (@xmasman_) <a href="https://twitter.com/xmasman_/status/325585079202091008">April 20, 2013</a></blockquote><br />This objective/subjective confusion is rampant, but they are not a dichotomy, they are not opposites, they are not mutually exclusive, they are two different levels of description.<br /><br />The subjective exists, it has an objective reality. We can observe it and measure it to varying degrees. Not perfectly but our tools are rapidly improving. The difficulty or even impossibility of teleporting your brain states onto my brain so I can experience them is just a physical difficulty (and one of complexity).<br /><br />Sure, Pain IS subjective, your brain takes in your entire sensorium and makes a calculated inference if it should signal pain or not - <a href="http://www.geekosystem.com/induced-phantom-limb/">it can also be easily fooled.</a> But this process is taking place in an objective reality, we can trace the signals into the brain and see the brain processing them and responding to them. 'Blue' is a description of a brain state that exists in objective reality, it doesn't even matter if our experience of 'blue' is different, it points to the same underlying physical phenomena and it takes place in an objective sense. Just because brains can be in states that do not point to some physical phenomena doesn't mean the experience isn't objectively taking place. One is the Map, the other is the Territory. The Map also exists, but we shouldn't confuse the two.<br /><br />The 'addition' taking place in the following video is objective, despite the dominoes not knowing anything about mathematics themselves:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5d1R0zr91Ao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Scale that up a trillion fold and that is exactly what your brain is doing, physically and electrochemically, it is performing computation.<br /><br />The evidence suggests that, for neuro-similar people, our subjective experiences are very similar -- and for neurologically divergent people, their subjective experiences are different. Someone with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy">tetrachromacy</a> has a subjectively different experience of 'color' than people with 2 or 3 pigments. But for trichromates, with otherwise similar brains, their experience of 'blue' and 'happy' and 'pain' are correspondingly similar both in terms of brain states and as described subjectively. When someone is neurologically dissimilar their descriptions of experiences differ from others (e.g., reports of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia">synesthetes</a>). Incidences of brain damage give us sometimes profound insights into the subjective impact of the physical brain. Our sense of empathy presumes and works because of these correspondences, it picks up on a multitude of cues and can closely reproduce the brain states of another person in the subject, giving us some ability to 'know' what others are experiencing.<br /><br />But this doesn't mean that what you 'feel' maps to objective reality, that isn't a necessary property of existing objectively.<br /><br />The link that <a href="https://twitter.com/GSpellchecker">@GSpellChecker</a> gave is evidence of this ability to measure the 'subjective':<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>"@<a href="https://twitter.com/xmasman_">xmasman_</a> You cannot observe pain. Just someone's experience of it"+ Inaccurate <a href="http://t.co/GCP5DGcbr5" title="http://bit.ly/Z81jid">bit.ly/Z81jid</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23Education">#Education</a></p>&mdash; Godless Spellchecker (@GSpellchecker) <a href="https://twitter.com/GSpellchecker/status/325504256381702144">April 20, 2013</a></blockquote><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/cterryadams">cterryadams</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> You are correct. However God might be inferred from arguments like: Fine tuning.Objective morality,Cosmological</p>&mdash; Xmas Man (@xmasman_) <a href="https://twitter.com/xmasman_/status/325575273770795008">April 20, 2013</a></blockquote><br />Fine-tuning is an appeal to ignorance (we don't know the range of possible physics so this cannot be measured), but we're going to conclude God did it anyway.<br /><br />Objective morality hasn't been established and Euthyphro represents a huge challenge to the presumption of a God, even if we could establish Objective morality. This claim is especially funny coming the person who denies the objective reality of our subjective experiences of 'pain' and 'blue'.<br /><br />Cosmological arguments are a combination of begging the question and arguments from ignorance and, at best, only establish a '<a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/04/first-cause-and-other-creationist-lies.html">first-cause</a>' for our universe. This is typically followed by a long line of fallacies and appeals to claim this cause is willful, intelligent, loving, and every other property they wish to attribute to their god, but it's Philosophical garbage. But the fundamental issue is that the premises of the Cosmological arguments are presumed on ignorance.<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/jwrunnells">jwrunnells</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/yournewlifenow1">yournewlifenow1</a> Love, pain anger etc are unfalsifiable yet credible?</p>&mdash; Xmas Man (@xmasman_) <a href="https://twitter.com/xmasman_/status/325494347380449280">April 20, 2013</a></blockquote><br />First of all, <a href="https://twitter.com/GSpellchecker">@GSpellChecker</a> said it was 'not a credible scientific claim'. This is correct and the later claim that this doesn't mean something isn't true is a complete non sequitur to the point made. This goes back to the whole fundamental <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/04/epistemic-faith.html">purpose of scientific investigation</a>. Yes, there could be a China Teapot in orbit around Mars but our conclusions are not better off for having made them up. If you want to demonstrate that the China Teapot is actually there you need to make a series of falsifiable claims that establish this (they would need to give a signal characteristic of a teapot and be sufficient to distinguish the measurements from other possibilities). Until you can do this then the claim remains in contention.<br /><br />The problem is that there are a infinite number of completely absurd claims that might be true, we must have some filter.<br /><br />I address the second prong of this in my post <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/03/where-do-you-find-love-in-brain.html">Where do you find 'love' in the brain?</a><br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/jwrunnells">jwrunnells</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/yournewlifenow1">yournewlifenow1</a> Once, the only evidence for Higgs boson was circumstantial. Could the Same be true for God?</p>&mdash; Xmas Man (@xmasman_) <a href="https://twitter.com/xmasman_/status/325487155545784320">April 20, 2013</a></blockquote><br />No, it was indicated as a necessary component of a physical model that predicted it would exist and if it didn't exist then the model was wrong.<br /><br />But again, there are an infinite number of possible absurd 'gods' and 'teapots', there is no predictive model that suggests one is necessary.<br /><br /><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-40395646235109078052013-04-18T09:19:00.001-05:002013-04-18T11:19:42.517-05:00Why a Good Person MUST Vote for Same-Sex Marriagere: <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332031/why-good-person-can-vote-against-same-sex-marriage-dennis-prager">Why a Good Person Can Vote against Same-Sex Marriage <br />Changing the definition of marriage is bad for society. <br />By Dennis Prager</a><br /><br />[Note: a more appropriate name is gender-neutral marriage, as there is a spectrum of gender expression at the biological level as well as gender and sexual identity at the personal level]<br /><br />Prager dissembles when he accuses both sides of not addressing the questions of the other side, yet he first creates a strawman of the "proponents question" (which he also incorrectly assumes is a singular question) and then fails to even adequately address that.<br /><br />Prager ignores critical questions such as the constitutionality under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment; he ignores that marriage in the United States has been repeatedly found to be an Individual Right, a personal right founded on the rights of privacy (to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects), association, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.<br /><br />Prager ignores that the foundation of our Rights are the understanding that sometimes Individual liberty is greater than societal concerns, the societal interest has to be legally 'Compelling'.<br /><br />Prager argues that the comparison to anti-miscegenation laws (against mixed race marriages) is unfair, because "Because racial differences are insignificant and gender differences are hugely significant" which is just flabbergastingly backwards, read it again carefully. Mixed races CAN marry because their differences are 'insignificant' but only opposite-sex marriages are allowed because 'gender differences are hugely significant'. I think it is safe to say that logic isn't his strong point.<br /><br />Prager's "Opposition to racism was advocated by every great moral thinker" is a blatant lie & slap in the face to those who suffered under some 1400 years** of Christian slave owners.<br /><blockquote>** For how many years were Christians slave owners?<br /><br />Do we count back to the time of Paul when he returns the slave Onesimus to his Master Philemon, the wealthy Christian?<br />Should we begin the count after the imposition of Christianity on Rome under Constantine (~312CE)?<br />And when should our count end? We could pick the Emancipation Proclamation 1863 (but that didn't end Christian slave ownership).<br />Or should we use 1902, when the Rev. and Mrs. Hunter died, having never told their slaves about the Civil War or that Lincoln had freed them.<br />Or should we use 1981, when Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery.<br />Or should we continue the count to this day because people are still kept in slavery, despite it being illegal?<br /><br />I don't care how you count it, it was many hundreds of years. And yes, to their individual credit, a few Christians through the years tried to argue that Slavery was wrong, but they did so against their own Bible and were largely unsuccessful as a result. And in the 19th Century it also true that many Christians came to the side of the abolition of Slavery (as did secular thinkers and activists of the period such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, Ernestine Louise Rose, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, and Robert Ingersoll). But it is also undeniable that the Christians of the time were slavers and argued strenuously against the abolition of the institution and committed much violence against the African slaves in their care.<br /><br />Biblical slavery also cannot be excused as mere indentured servitude (which it ALSO has, but only for the fellow Israelites, not foreign slaves):<br />Leviticus 25:46 foreign slaves are yours forever<br />Exodus 21:20-21 slaves are property & can be beaten</blockquote><br />Let's look at the type of equality offered in the Bible. In Exodus 21:12 we see that if you 'Murder' (the Hebrew word for 'Murder' is not the same as the word for 'kill', you may 'kill' in self-defense or when ordered by God such as carrying out God's Law; while 'murder' pertains to killing an innocent party) someone it says you are to be put to death (Hebrew: מוּת (muth), put to death). However, in Exodus 21:20-21, when a slave, who is your property, is beaten to death there is to be נָקַם (naqam) Avenged for כָּ֫סֶפ (keseph) Silver (a fine is to be paid).<br /><br />Also, in Genesis 9:25-27 Noah says, of his own youngest son, 'Cursed be Canaan' and condemns his family line to be the lowest of slaves to the lines of his brothers, Shem and Japheth. This will resurface as a command to commit genocide against the seven nations in Deuteronomy 7:1 <i>When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou</i><br /><br />Our own Declaration of Independence reads 'all men are created equal' yet we institutionalized slavery. Because, as the Rev. Fuller would later argue against the abolition of slavery "What God sanctioned in the Old Testament, and permitted in the New, cannot be a sin".<br /><br />Prager asks "Second, if opposition to same-sex marriage is as immoral as racism, why did no great moral thinker, in all of history, ever advocate male-male or female-female marriage?" This is nothing but an appeal to tradition, as vapid as the SAME appeal to tradition many Christian slavers made "If slavery is immoral, why didn't God or Jesus speak out against it; why has it been around for so long...". These appeals ring empty and false.<br /><br />If we look back through history we actually find <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions">numerous cases of same-sex marriages</a> "thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual". It wasn't until after Christianity came into the culture that this practice was outlawed, followed shortly by the fall of Rome (and Gibbon attributes this fall, in part, to the rise of Christianity). So Prager's thesis here fails on the facts.<br /><br />Prager argues "To argue that opposition to same-sex marriage is immoral is to argue that every moral thinker, and every religion and social movement in the history of mankind prior to the last 20 years in America and Europe was immoral", haven't these societies failed in just about every other way possible anyway? People considered Menarche (a young girl's first period) the proper 'Age of consent' for ages, know we know that this is not an appropriate age and that forcing these young women into sexual intercourse and marriage at young ages does them lifelong emotional damage. Slavery was tolerated and often praised ("oh look at us, we're saving the poor savages from themselves and giving them a proper 'Christian' education". Wars of aggression, deceitful politics, ... how haven't these societies failed? But it's one thing to fail out of our ignorance - the past we know of, the last 6000 years or so - has plainly been a long, painful, slow crawl out of ignorance with many missteps along the way. That's not an excuse to PURPOSEFULLY perpetrate another.<br /><br />Prager says "the question is whether redefining marriage in the most radical way ever conceived", other people getting married doesn't affect your marriage in the slightest and I think I've shown that this is a plainly false claim because same-sex marriages very clearly existed in our past.<br /><br />Prager then goes into a slippery slope argument about how there is a war on gender "render meaningless the man-woman distinction". I'm sorry but this is just pathetic.<br /><br />Goes on to say "those who, for religious or other reasons, wish to retain the man-woman definition of marriage will be legally and morally as isolated as racists are today", utter hogwash. I'm a father of a wonderful son and two guys getting married doesn't affect me in the slightest.<br /><br />In conclusion Prager repeats himself, "There are reasons no moral thinker in history ever advocated same-sex marriage"... Well, Mr. Prager, the great moral thinkers of our age disagree with you.<br /><br />So I now ask, is it 'good for society' when bigotry is allowed to define loving relationships for other individuals?<br />Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-64947489492121672662013-04-16T21:45:00.000-05:002013-07-22T16:33:34.274-05:00Epistemic FaithHow do we come to beliefs and knowledge? Faith you might say? You have but to look at the list of failed deities and religions to understand that this kind of Faith is a failed methodology. 33,000 sects of Christianity, thousands of religions, thousands of 'gods', gods we find utterly absurd today such as the gods of the water, the moon, the air, and thunder. All were created in a Faith that wasn't based on evidence but on superstitions and presumptions.<br /><br />So what has worked? Science? No, more fundamental -- removing known sources of factual error, removing known sources of cognitive biases, and removing known sources of illogic from our conclusions. Evidence is the only way we have to distinguish between competing claims. And it must come from our collective efforts - no single individual can know enough or be careful enough, this is the foundation of Peer-review, without which we fail (demonstrably) in the fundamentals of removing error, bias, and illogic.<br /><br />It is out of these things that science is born. No effort is better for leaving in error, ensuring bias, and applying illogical constructs. Indeed, it would be a self-defeating proposition to assert that it would be.<br /><br />That's my epistemic foundation. And from that I can tell you about a different kind of Faith, a Faith that demands it be held to the highest possible standards of evidence and scrutiny of methodology. A Faith that has proven itself successful in the advancement of knowledge when it is applied with rigour. A Faith that produces a convergence of belief on the evidence rather than a bifurcation of belief based on imaginary musing. It doesn't promise all answers nor pretend to certainty nor guarantee a false emotional security.<br /><br />That's the kind of Faith I follow. And from it we have walked, not on water, but on the moon; cured intractable diseases, not by a laying on of hands or a casting of demons into pigs, but by laying on of knowledge about the true underpinning of disease and mental illness (genetics, prions, viruses, bacteria, poisons); and fed the multitudes, not through magical incantations, but by applying our understanding of offspring selection, genetics, and evolution to our food supply.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-10161594291292225532013-04-16T11:39:00.000-05:002013-04-16T15:07:08.186-05:00Disbelief: On homosexuality, heaven, and epistemologyThis is based off a forum post where I asked about how a Mother can be happy and tearless in Heaven while her homosexual son (intended just to give an example) is suffering eternally in Hell. I was asked:<br /><blockquote>Are you claiming there are no (former) homosexuals in heaven?</blockquote>I'm not making that claim but a vast number of Christians (and especially Catholics) do.<br /><br />I wouldn't make such claims because I don't believe in a 'heaven' nor a 'hell' nor a 'god' - I <b><i>used</i></b> to believe such things because I was inculcated with those beliefs as a child. Then I learned about Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hellenism, Hinduism (esp the <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-case-of-sri-sathya-sai-baba.html">case of Sri Sathya Sai Baba</a>), Sikhism, Shinto, Jainism (I really liked that one), Bahá'í, Cao Ðài, Cheondoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, Rastafari, Scientology, Eckankar, Raëlism. I learned about how divided even just Christians are on hundreds of important theological points (with some 33,000 some-odd sects of just Christianity, thousands of those are very deep divisions). They can't even agree on the Trinity (see Arius, et al.). Yes, you call them Heresy and they call your beliefs Heresy and there is no evidence upon which to decide &lt;&lt; this is the fundamental issue.<br /><br />I learned about history and the role religion often plays in promulgating prejudices -- such as those today against those who don't share your normative sexuality or aren't gender binary; our gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, (and many others on the spectrum) fellow human beings who suffer emotional damage, physical violence, and a denial of fair and equal treatment under our laws, all at the hands of the small-minded. All based on ignorance and a fear that appeals to scripture as did Reverend Richard Fuller when he summed up the Christian position on Slavery in 1845: “What God sanctioned in the Old Testament, and permitted in the New, cannot be a sin”.<br /><br />I read Martin Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies", I read about the racism, slavery, and violence of the Vatican (and Islam, and many others) and I saw the result that played out as human populations rose, our technology for mass murder advanced but our ability to communicate and to know what was happened lagged behind -- by the end of it, some 200 million people enslaved, slaughtered, their culture destroyed and the 'survivors' emotionally destroyed. Africans and the natives through the islands of the Americas, the Aztec and Mayan people in South America, and the natives of North America. Virtually wiped out, not merely decimated. And it was largely a Christian people who did that, largely under the 'authority' of the Spanish Requerimiento and doctrine of Manifest Destiny.<br /><br />But let me be clear, <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-not-religion.html">I DO NOT BLAME religion, per se, (see link)</a><br /><a name='more'></a><br />But religions did drive this exceptionalism, and the moral failures that underpin it are coded right in the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran. If you would put God before your own child, if you would sacrifice your own child for God, what wouldn't you do if you believed God sanctioned it? If <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/03/christianity-is-not-moral-slavery.html">Christianity cannot get slavery right</a>, what moral authority can it possibly offer? [and while I sure hope you are against slavery now, that doesn't account for the ~1400 years it was practiced openly by Christians nor the textual basis to which Rev. Fuller refers]<br /><br />I also studied the sciences and philosophy, especially epistemology. How do we come to beliefs and knowledge? Critical question isn't it? Faith? You have but to look at the list of failed deities and religious to understand that this kind of Faith is a failed methodology.<br /><br />So what has worked? Science? No, more fundamental -- removing known sources of factual error, removing known sources of cognitive biases, and removing known sources of illogic from our conclusions. Evidence is the only way we have to distinguish between competing claims. And it MUST come from our collective efforts - no single individual can know enough or be careful enough, this is the foundation of Peer-review, without which we fail (demonstrably) in the fundamentals of removing error, bias, and illogic.<br /><br />It is out of these things that science is born. No effort is better for leaving in error, ensuring bias, and applying illogical constructs. It's a self-defeating proposition to assert otherwise, so it is "Self-Evidently" true.<br /><br />That's my epistemic foundation. And from that I can tell you about a different kind of Faith, a Faith that demands it be held to the highest possible standards of evidence and scrutiny of methodology. A Faith that has proven itself successful in the advancement of knowledge when it is applied with rigour. A Faith that produces a convergence of belief on the evidence rather than a bifurcation of belief based on imaginary musing. It doesn't promise all answers nor pretend to certainty nor guarantee a false emotional security.<br /><br />That's the kind of Faith I follow. And from it we have walked not on water but on the moon; not cast demons into pigs but cured formerly intractable diseases and increased our knowledge of the neurological underpinnings of mental illness; and fed the multitudes through evolutionary changes in our food supply not magic. We're also still petty, emotionally driven, human beings who suffer deeply from the emotional scars of our past and we do horrific things to each other as a result, but we are slowly getting better.<br /><br />Superstitious thinking remains the root of much evil in the world and women have borne the brunt of much of it at the hands of men - from sacrificial virgins to the volcano gods to being burned as witches, it is disproportionately women who suffer at the hands of men who would presume to have authority over others.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-57954334911924949532013-04-15T23:48:00.001-05:002013-04-16T02:03:19.667-05:00Perspective on World ViolencePeople often wonder where we are and where we are going, are things getting 'better' or 'worse' in the world?<br /><br />If we look at recent history in the United States we see a <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1">very sharp drop in the rate of violent crime</a>, down about 50% from 757.7 per 100,000 in 1992 to 386.3 per 100,000 in 2011. Aside: There are some very good arguments to be made that a component of this drop is credited to an environmental reduction in lead [<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline">MJ</a>] [<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/">Forbes</a>] [<a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/may08/w13097.html">NBER</a>] [<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/astonishing-argument-why-violent-crime-rates-have-dropped?paging=off">AlterNet</a>]<br /><br />But I think that, even as bad as some places are globally, on the whole the world is a better place today.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/images/final-images/g-pop-growth-chart-map.gif" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/images/final-images/g-pop-growth-chart-map.gif" width="580" /></a><br /><a name='more'></a><br />There was a confluence of factors that made the 19th and 20th centuries, by far, the most violent and bloody this world will (hopefully) ever know. First, was the advent of the medical sciences which rapidly and greatly expanded the average human lifespan (combined with agricultural advancements and industrialization), creating a population explosion. Second, was the advancement of military technologies, which enabled the capability to murder human beings on a terrible scale. Third, was the lack of individual-to-individual world-wide communications - news travelled too slowly and through too few channels that were too easily controlled. And I would argue a fourth, humanity was simply ignorant of too many critical things. This enabled psychopaths to acquire and control the means of mass murder against massive populations and there wasn't much anyone could do seem to do about it, in large part due to a lack of knowledge (especially in China).<br /><br />Leading up to this time period and continuing through the early 20th century we still had the mass enslavement of millions of Africans (estimates range from 10-20 million slaves taken from Africa with a solid 10 million reaching foreign shores) and people through the Americas on the authority of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requerimiento">Spanish Requerimiento</a> (especially the islands). We had the destruction and slaughter of the Aztec and Mayan peoples in the Southern Hemisphere and Manifest Destiny in the Northern Hemisphere giving empowerment to the idea that we could take land and lives from the Native 'savages' (and I use the term with disdain). So many millennia of slavery had to pass before the idea that all men should be free and be treated equally under the law (and by our fellow man) - and the slow realization that we had left out over 50% of human beings, that women too should be treated with the utmost respect as human beings and given the same rights as men (the right to vote and the right of bodily autonomy).<br /><br />We still see deep and hateful racism and sexism, violent at times, but things ARE better on these fronts as well. The <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/04/identifying-problem-prejudices.html">next major frontier</a> is the fair and equal treatment of our gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, queer and all other gender- and sexuality-spectrum fellow human beings. Realize that neither gender (not physically nor biologically) nor sexuality are binary things... people ARE different and we need to recognize that and celebrate it and lament on how long it took us to get here. How many people suffered in silence, among people who Hate and Despised them and wished them dead? These people are finally finding a voice in the world, this IS progress.<br /><br /><br />Let's <a href="http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm">look back through history</a> for some perspective:<br /><br />King Léopold II, Congo Free State (1886-1908): 8,000,000 dead<br />First World War (1914-1918): 15,000,000 dead<br />Russian Civil War (1917-22): 9,000,000 dead<br />Soviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20,000,000 dead<br />Hitler: Second World War (1939-45): 66,000,000 dead<br />Mao Zedong: People's Republic of China (1949-1975): 40,000,000 dead<br />Mexican Revolution (1910-20): 1,000,000 dead<br />1st Chinese Civil War, Nationalist Era (1928-37): 5,000,000 dead<br />Post-War Expulsion of Germans from East Europe (1945-47): 2,100,000 dead<br />2nd Chinese Civil War (1945-49): 2,500,000 dead<br />Korean War (1950-53): 3,000,000 dead<br />North Korea (1948 et seq.): 3,000,000 dead <br />Rwanda and Burundi (1959-95): 1,350,000 dead<br />Second Indochina War (1960-75): 4 200,000 dead<br />Ethiopia (1962-92): 2,000,000 dead<br />Nigeria (1966-70): 1,000,000 dead<br />Bangladesh (1971): 1,250,000 dead<br />Cambodia, Khmer Rouge (1975-1978): 1,650,000 dead<br />Afghanistan (1979-2001): 1,800,000 dead<br />Sudan (1983-2005): 1,900,000 dead<br />Kinshasa Congo (1998 et seq.): 3,800,000 dead<br /><br />Brazil (1900 et seq.) 800,000<br />Portuguese Colonies (1900-25): 325,000<br />China, Warlord Era (1917-28): 800,000<br />Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922): 400,000<br />Spanish Civil War (1936-39): 365,000<br />Spanish Civil War, Franco Regime (1939-75): 100,000<br />Abyssinian Conquest (1935-41): 400,000<br />First Indochina War (1945-54): 400,000<br />India (1947): 500,000<br />Algeria (1954-62): 537,000<br />Sudan (1955-72): 500,000<br />Indonesia (1965-66): 400,000<br />Uganda, Idi Amin's regime (1972-79): 300,000<br />Vietnam, post-war Communist regime (1975 et seq.): 365,000<br />Angola (1975-2002): 500,000<br />Mozambique (1975-1992): 800,000<br />Iraq, Saddam Hussein (1979-2003): 300,000<br />Ugandan Bush War (1979-86): 300,000 <br />Iran-Iraq War (1980-88): 700,000<br />Iraq (1990-2003): 350,000<br />Somalia (1991 et seq.): 500,000<br /><br />American Conquest of the Philippines (1899-1902): 220,000<br />Colombia (1899-1902): 100,000<br />Somalia, Mohammed Abdulla Hasan (1899-1920): 100,000<br />Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901): 115,000<br />Amazonia (1900-12): 250,000<br />French Colonies (1900-40): 200,000<br />Russo-Japanese War (1904-05): 130,000<br />Maji-Maji Revolt, German East Africa (1905-07): 175,000<br />Libya (1911-31): 125,000 <br />Balkan Wars (1912-13): 140,000<br />Russo-Polish War (1918-1920): 100,000<br />Turkey (1925-28): 250,000<br />Chaco War (1932-35): 100,000<br />Russo-Finnish War (1939-1940): 150,000<br />Greek Civil War (1943-49): 158,000<br />Yugoslavia, Tito's Regime (1944-80): 200,000<br />Colombia (1946-58): 200,000<br />Romania (1948-89): 150,000<br />East Germany (1949-89): 100,000<br />Guatemala (1960-1996): 200,000<br />Congo Crisis (1960-64): 100,000<br />North Yemen (1962-70): 100,000<br />New Guinea Irian Jaya (1962 et seq.): 40,000 - 400,000<br />East Timor, Conquest by Indonesia (1975-99): 200,000<br />Lebanon (1975-90): 150,000<br />Cambodian Civil War (1978-91): 225,000<br />Kurdistan (1980s, 1990s): 300,000<br />Uganda (1987- ): 100,000<br />Liberia (1989-2003): 250,000<br />Algeria (1992-2002): 100,000<br />Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-95): 175,000 <br />Zaire (Dem. Rep. Congo), Civil War (1997): 250,000<br /><br />The list of smaller conflicts goes on-and-on-and-on, but adds up to far too many lives destroyed. There cannot be enough tears shed for these people and their families and loved ones. We cannot even begin to imagine the suffering of these people. To even try is to dispair, the numbers are just astronomical.<br /><br />And there are still unacceptably tragic conflicts going on around the world today, but on the whole things ARE better than they have been in the past.<br /><br />This doesn't make the remaining violence 'ok' in any sense, but it gives some perspective for having hope in our future.<br /><br />The biggest Challenge to forward progress are the <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/04/identifying-problem-prejudices.html">prejudices</a> which plagued the 20th century.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-5372942487308382502013-04-15T15:50:00.001-05:002013-04-24T14:02:54.663-05:00First Cause and other Creationist Lies about the Big BangIt is a common creationist trope to assert that 'something can't come from nothing' and they dishonestly assert the <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/">Big Bang</a> is a 'creation' event. [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang">wiki</a>]<br /><blockquote>The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points.</blockquote>There are several issues with these claims...<br /><br />Foremost of the issues is that the Big Bang doesn't even CLAIM to be a creation event (nor an 'explosion'), it is an expansion - often characterized by an Inflationary period that evidence suggests began within those early moments.<br /><br />The Big Bang theory CANNOT address events prior to about 1 Planck second because we have NO direct or indirect knowledge of that period. So these assertions are just grossly and plainly false.<br /><br />So I want to be very clear - when creationists make these claims they are 'BEARING FALSE WITNESS'. Furthermore, when they are making these claims publically they have purposefully abandoned their duty of due diligence. In my book this makes you a LIAR. Not merely mistaken, a flat out LIAR. There is no excuse for purposefully misrepresenting science. You Are A Liar. Period.<br /><br />Now, if you have any Intellectual Honesty (even that of the size of a grain of mustard seed), you will admit your error and work to correct it. If you don't do this then I find you not only a Liar but a Fraud in my book. And if you are stuck at this stage in your intellectual development you might as well stop here.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Before we move on let's also clear the air about this word, 'Theory'. If you look up the definitions of the word 'SET' you will find on the order of 464 DIFFERENT definitions. How can a word with 464 definitions even be useful, how would you EVER know what was meant when "you were all set to set the cup on the tv set"? Simple, we interpret the term based on our knowledge of the context.<br /><br />There are only about 12 definitions for the word 'theory', but we only really care about TWO of them:<br /><br />(1) Scientific Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment<br />(2) theory, colloquial: a hypothesis or guess about something<br /><br />Scientists and educated people have no problem, "working on a test of String theory to see if we can demonstrate it as a Theory". The first usage is informal, the second is formal in the scientific sense of the term. So, 'String theory' is NOT a Theory of science, it's not even a proper hypothesis. It is, at present, only a mathematical framework that may or may not correlate to physical reality. Someday, some formulation of this 'theory' might become a proper hypothesis and eventually be confirmed as a Scientific Theory, but that isn't the current state of things.<br /><br />If you purposefully misuse this term to MISLEAD people (e.g., "Evolution is still just a theory") that is called an Equivocation. This is also called 'BEARING FALSE WITNESS' or LYING.<br /><br /><br /><br />Back to the Big Bang... I will grant you that many 'popularized' accounts of the Big Bang misuse <a href="http://www.science20.com/quantum_gravity/blog/big_bang_was_not_explosion_however_explosion_metaphor_what_big_bang_was-78575">metaphorical language such as 'explosion'</a> but that doesn't align to the Scientific Theory of the Big Bang as published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. It is just that, metaphorical language.<br /><br />One of the fundamental laws of nature that we have been able to infer (over about 22 orders of magnitude) is that matter-energy are neither created nor destroyed. So the logical inference drawn if this law holds is that matter-energy we know today was not created in the Big Bang. In fact, the typically envisioned scenario is explained as "everything was compressed into an infinitesimally small point". This is not at all the same situation as all of the stuff of the universe magically coming into existence out of nothing.<br /><br />What we have before that first Planck second is an UNKNOWN. There is absolutely NO evidence for what happened before that moment and very little data to guide us. We can, at present, only make inferences that GREATLY EXTRAPOLATE beyond our current theories but they are merely GUESSES. When such a 'guess' can be formulated it in a way that it can be tested (falsified) AND it accounts for all the known data and isn't contradicted by any evidence then it can be called a Scientific Hypothesis. We are, at present, not at the stage of having any Hypotheses about what happened BEFORE the Big Bang.<br /><br />Unknown does NOT equal God.<br /><br /><br />There are several working frameworks in which the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang-the-new-philosophy-of-cosmology/251608/">possible origins</a> of the Big Bang are explored. The most popular of these are known as 'String theory', 'M-brane theory', and Quantum Loop Gravity (<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3706">hints of pre-Big Bang fingerprints</a>). In some of these, the CAUSE of the Big Bang are Quantum Fluctuations out of a kind of 'Nothingness' that we cannot describe and we have no scientific guidance on currently (but one piece of evidence in favor of this is that our Universe appears to consist of Zero Energy as a net sum). There is also the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartle%E2%80%93Hawking_state">Hawking-Hartle model</a> in which the origin event doesn't exist in time and is thus unbounded (there is, mathematically speaking, no 'beginning'). There are also theories (again, in the colloquial sense) that our Universe is merely one in a vast sea of a multiverse.<br /><br />It is, in fact, the creationists who believe in a creation ex nihilo (out of nothing)... First, these bastions of skepticism, who (rightfully) demand evidence in every claim of science, suddenly become the gullible sheep when they appeal to their unevidenced god-concept as the creator and they hand-wave an appeal to the unevidenced 'transcendent' for their eternally existing god. I could just easily appeal to a transcendent mote which is ever-existing and spins out universes. How does it do this? Oh no! You aren't allowed to ask that question, it JUST DOES. What does it create these universes out of? It JUST DOES. Why doesn't it require a creator? It JUST EXISTS, it's transcendent silly, you can't even ask this! And the 'magic' that has REALLY been done here to utterly squelch legitimate inquiry.<br /><br />Oh no, they say, it MUST be, not just a god, but MY God. And more often by a wide margin, The God I just happened to be inculcated with through cultural experience. And when it's a Muslim isn't it such a pity those billions of Christians just have it wrong? And when it's a Christian, the other way around.<br /><br /><br />If our scientific understanding of the conservation 'Laws' are wrong, and matter-energy CAN be created/destroyed by some process then it becomes even more difficult to say anything based on the science, which you are depending upon in your premise - so the premise fails on this front as well.<br /><br /><br />[This is a DRAFT - Work In Progress]Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-25282585622455450782013-04-13T15:49:00.001-05:002014-11-13T23:14:12.273-06:00Debunking: Gene duplication doesn't increase the information in DNANumerous creationists have made claims along the lines of '<i>Gene duplication doesn't increase the information in DNA</i>', I would challenge them to show their math.<br /><br />First, let's begin with some definitions:<br /><ol><li>Entropy is NOT a measure of 'disorder' (a very common misstatement) but of the dispersal of energy in a system (this dispersal makes it unavailable to do work)</li><li>Shannon Entropy quantifies the information content of a message, it is a quantitative measure of the average <b>un</b>predictability, given by:<br /><pre>H(X) = -∑ P(x) log₂ [P(x)]<br />P(x) probability X is in state x [P log₂ P = 0 where P=0]</pre>see: Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory, Khinchin</li><li> Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is composed of two long polymers of simple units called nucleotides, with backbones made of five-carbon sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds; attached to each sugar is one of four bases: thymine (T), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and adenine (A). A group of three bases, taken together, represent a codon (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_codon_table">which map to Amino Acids or control Codons</a>) It is the sequence of these Codons that compose the bulk of the 'informational' content of DNA.</li></ol>Now let's look at the math.<br /><a name='more'></a><br />The DNA pattern equates to an alphabet of 22 letters. The frequency of letters in this alphabet are not relevant to the *relative* information content question at hand because we're doing a relative comparison, but would change the specific measured values.<br /><br />The simplest way to work with the equation is to assume all the letters are equally probable, having a probability of 1/22 of appearing:<br /><br /><blockquote>GCT = 1 'codon' letter with a probability of 1/22<br /><br />I = - log₂(1/22) = 4.4594316... bits/codon letter</blockquote><br />As our message gets longer, it simply increases proportionally to the length of the message:<br /><br /><blockquote>GCT AAC TTT TGG<br /><br />I = 4 * (- log₂(1/22)) = 17.837726... bits</blockquote><br />And now if you duplicate that:<br /><br /><blockquote>GCT AAC TTT TGG GCT AAC TTT TGG<br /><br />I = 8 * (- log₂(1/22)) = 35.6754529... bits</blockquote><br />Therefore the information content goes up, even when you merely duplicated data (even a portion of it, because it is proportional) and even simple single base-pair mutation CHANGE the information contained within DNA.<br /><br />Now imagine a duplicated allele in an organism, it is going to express that protein at a greater rate than in the progenitor organism, that is a clear change right there. Then, when one of these two alleles experience a mutation the original function of the allele remains intact, and we have a new protein being expressed in the organism. In no possible sense is this 'not increasing information'.<br /><br />You can increase the size of the alphabet and adjust the probabilities/frequencies of the letters all you want (clearly start &amp; stop would appear less frequently) but you won't change the fact that duplicating a portion of the data will produce an increase the total information. Nor will you change the relative effect of duplicating large segments of the message.<br /><br />Because, even though Shannon information decreases the more we constrain/limit the system (because the probabilities of the next codon become more certain), there is still an informational content expressed as bits/letter -- adding more letters to a message that is already billions of letters long isn't going to have a measurable change in the probabilities, but will greatly increase the number of codons and drive up the total informational content.<br /><br />If you are a creationist and you disagree then I'm sorry, but you'll need to show your math (and if you're correct, publish it in a reputable peer-reviewed journal and you will win the Nobel Prize).<br /><br />See Also:<br /><a href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf">Shannon information theory</a> <br /><a href="http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/">Frank L. Lambert's Simple evolution vs thermodynamics</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3E589B2B19124F48">York University: Coding and Information Theory, video series</a>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-87514727019641404722013-04-11T20:05:00.001-05:002013-04-16T02:03:28.524-05:00On Tihomir Dimitrov's 'Fifty Nobel Laureates Who Believe in God'I ran across this website that mentions a self-published "book" called 'Fifty Nobel Laureates Who Believe in God' by Tihomir Dimitrov, which is also available via his website: <a href="http://nobelists.net/">http://nobelists.net/</a><br /><br />This just screams *argument from authority*, so I had to take a look.<br /><br />First of all, many of the people listed are from hundreds of years ago (or even in the 20th century in some ways) when the Churches promulgated and enforced Christianity at the point of a sword. You couldn't be in a professional position during most of the past two millennia and not profess a belief in a God. You would have been put under tremendous pressure from family and intimidation from the authorities, quite often under threat of torture or a forfeiture of life and property and the destruction of your family. Most of the 'Christian persecution' in Roman times was because Christians refused to accept the 'real' Gods (the Roman Gods), afterall, how could you be a good person and reject the REAL Gods? It seemed to clear to the Romans of the time. And then in the fourth century when Christians rose in power they seemingly forgot this and repeated the error, persecuting the pagans and even other Christians such as Arius and his followers:<br /><blockquote>"In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment" — Edict by Emperor Constantine</blockquote>As well as other many other Christian sects such as the Gnostics (various), Marcionites, Manicheans, etc.<br /><a name='more'></a><br />EVEN TODAY there are still <a href="http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Long-ago-Texas-law-still-bars-atheists-from-office-1743591.php">laws on the books in some States</a> that ban 'atheists' from holding office (they have been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but remain on the books) - but in practice it is still difficult even to be a POLITICIAN (of all things) and be an open atheist - so this discrimination continues albeit with fewer tortures and executions (<a href="http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/01/19/murdered-for-being-an-atheist.htm">and it is STILL not zero</a>, and much less so in <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2013/02/23/save-atheists-islamists-are-slaughtering-them-in-bangladesh/">other parts of the world</a>).<br /><br />So SHAME on anyone who is trying to appeal to this bloody and tainted history as some kind of evidence that the professed beliefs of someone in history is a comment on the veracity or relevance of claims about a 'god'. What makes an authority an ACTUAL authority is their evidence and arguments in support of a proposition, and on this point, none is offered.<br /><br />Secondly, many of these claims are either false, misconstrued, or twisted.<br /><br />As I posted in <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2011/09/newton-was-christian-and-other.html">Newton Was A Christian and other Fallacies</a>, Newton was also an Alchemist! Shall we chalk one up for the Alchemists? Absurd! Furthermore, Newton was an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism">Arian</a>, which means he rejected the Trinity - a position he would have been murdered for if found out. I dare any 'Christian' who wishes to claim him to honestly deny the Trinity alongside him (they are making an appeal to authority after all, do they reject their own authority?)<br /><br />Another stand-out is his appeal to Einstein, This is the FIRST entry and it sets the mendacious tone quite well. He is perfectly happy to quote Einstein when he waxes poetic but he neglects to quote where Einstien defines his terms and clarifies his position, something I've done on my entry <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2011/03/einstein-spinoza-and-god.html">Einstein, Spinoza, and God</a>; not a SINGLE ONE of those quotes are included in Dimitrov's collection of Einstein quotes. Now, why do you suppose he would exclude these quotes? [and note the evolution in time]<br /><blockquote><b>1929</b>: <i>I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.</i></blockquote><blockquote><b>1950</b>: <i>My position concerning God is that of an agnostic</i></blockquote><blockquote><b>1954</b>: <i>The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses</i></blockquote><blockquote><b>1954</b>: <i>It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this</i></blockquote><br />But the funniest one has to be Thomas H. Huxley's inclusion on this list. The FOUNDER of <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-agnosticism.html">Agnosticism</a>, the heart of which is parsimonious epistemology:<br /><blockquote>Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle. <b><i>Positively the principle may be expressed as, in matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it can carry you without other considerations. And negatively, in matters of the intellect, </i></b><b><i>do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable</i></b>. It is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.</blockquote><br />His 'evidences' are largely <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-quote-mine-like-lying-creationist.html">quote mining on the scale that puts bible.ca to shame.</a><br /><br />But the final word here is EVIDENCE. And when it comes to evidence for God, Dimitrov has a distinct and total lack of it.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-90150597682122783462013-04-10T13:59:00.000-05:002013-04-16T02:04:48.622-05:00Gun Rights in the United StatesI'm not an expert on Guns or Gun Rights, I have a vast array of other things that consume my attention. But I do have a few considered observations and questions.<br /><br /><b>Concessions</b>:<br /><ol><li>US gun rights are derived largely from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">2nd Amendment to the US Constitution</a> with the language:<br /><blockquote><i>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</i></blockquote></li><li>I stipulate that there is a Natural right to self-defense, but I hold that this must be carried out in the most ethical manner, as we hold in the balance the power to violate the Right to Life (which is certainly the greater Right) of others with this power</li><li>I stipulate that this self-defense applies to the people against tyranny of government (not imagined tyranny)</li><li>I stipulate that the militia referenced is of the Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”)</li><li>I stipulate that this right extends to the 'whole people' (one way in which this Right has already evolved, as it used to be only 'men')<br /></ol><a name='more'></a><b>Observations</b>: <ol><li>The 2nd amendment is the only amendment that explicitly states a purpose behind the law</li><li>That this is the same Constitution which once held an amendment creating a disastrous prohibition on Alcohol production and consumption, which was so atrocious it had to be quickly redacted after having done irreparable harm to the security of the United States (funding massive criminal works that drove corruption and violence), harm we have never recovered from and harm that continues today in the illegal (unconstitutional) federal prohibitions on 'drugs' (an overbroad misnomer)</li><li>That this is the same Constitution which institutionalized slavery, which required massive bloodshed to eradicate</li><li>This this is the same Constitution that once forbade women from voting</li><li>Even in <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf">D.C. vs Heller</a>, the Court stated <i>"the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training."</i><br /><li>We require education and training commensurate with the task for the friseur and the doctor and the motor vehicle operator, but not for the "well-regulated" militia</li><br /><br /><br /></ol><b>Questions</b>: <ol><li>Given the Constitutional errors evident from our plain history, does it not seem that the Constitution is, just perhaps, not necessarily a perfect document for all times and places? And may, perhaps, from time to time need to be fitted to new knowledge of the world and new circumstances?</li><li>Given the repeated and increasingly intensifying tragic events of gun violence, does it not seem evident that perhaps just a bit MORE of that 'trained to arms' and 'proper discipline and training' might be warranted, in our current time and place?</li></ol><b>Conclusions</b>:<br /><br />I'm currently opposed to a full out ban on guns in the United States, but nobody seems to be actually proposing that; except in the imaginations of people of questionable motive. It's not even clear to me that an 'assault weapon' (a complicated misnomer) BAN is the right approach (regulation yes, training yes, background checks yes).<br /><br />Nor am I deluded, education and training alone will not solve all of our gun woes (certainly not in the short-term) - but the question is, will it help? It certainly seems wise to consider a path that increases the level of education and training required to gain access to such a powerful tool that, even in innocent hands, brings daily death and destruction to so many lives.<br /><br />I think we can do better without sacrificing necessary freedoms.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-4896904168187174322013-04-09T10:38:00.002-05:002013-04-16T07:43:28.125-05:00Science says Life begins at conception..."<b><i>Science says Life begins at conception...</i></b>"<br /><br />No, that isn't what 'science' says. The evidence is that life began ~3.6Gya and that HUMAN life BEGAN about 200,000 years ago.<br /><br />Since that earliest life there has been a continuous chain of decent of one cell to another generation of cell with constant mutation:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3570516/">The variable somatic genome</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/01/1213736109.full.pdf">Extensive genetic variation in somatic human tissues</a><br /><br />From the above, we see that every cellular descendant is somewhat unique, not just at fertilization. You are merely making an arbitrary special pleading case.<br /><a name='more'></a><br />And, if you want to claim that it has to be *<b>really unique</b>* to count then you've just failed to account for twins -- does this mean we can kill one twin because the other is nearly genetically identical? Again, you are reduced to special pleading.<br /><br />Furthermore, we do not define human existence at the cellular level. A human being is trillions of cells working together in concert to create consciousness, at the end of life when the cells are still there but the brain function has ceased, we don't consider it murder to allow the rest of the body to die.<br /><br />If individual 'human' cells deserved protection as a human being then the trillions of HeLa cells (human cells that are now immortal and live as individual cells) would each be drawing a pension and have the right to vote as they are well over 18.<br /><br />So... are these single-celled 'humans' the same as a person or not? If not, why not? They are unique, they are human, they are living... what is your criteria?<br /><br />Furthermore, this idiotic idea that a single-cell at the moment of fertilization magically becomes a 'new human being' would (1) make your God the biggest mass murderer in all of history due to the frequency of spontaneous abortions and (2) simultaneously pin this flaw on the women making her out to be the murderer when there is a miscarriage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges Because of you mentally sick and ignorant people pushing this nonsense.<br /><br />Just NO.<br /><br />See more info and related dumb arguments at <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2013/01/when-cells-divide-argument-from.html">When Cells Divide: the argument from uniqueness</a>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-87127296694879794082013-04-02T11:06:00.003-05:002013-04-12T08:44:41.917-05:00It's ON! Another fool makes a specific predictionHere it is folks:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>10 Days...April ,9.Supernatural Experiences...For Every Atheist In America.Let's Agree.<a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23drMM">#drMM</a><a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23fb">#fb</a> </p>&mdash; Dr. Mike Murdock (@drmikemurdock) <a href="https://twitter.com/drmikemurdock/status/319019914071506944">April 2, 2013</a></blockquote><br />To which I accepted so mark your calendars! April 9th apparently (I think it started several days ago or this is a case of 'Gospel math').<br /><br />I just LOVE it when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events">they make specific predictions</a>, they just fail <a href="http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1800s.php">over and over and over</a> - this helps break some people out of their ingrained beliefs and it helps to discredit them in the eyes of the public.<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>You're ON! failure = Deuteronomy 18:20-22 @<a href="https://twitter.com/drmikemurdock">drmikemurdock</a> [in] 10 Days…Supernatural Experiences…For Every <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23Atheist">#Atheist</a> In America</p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/319111116431183872">April 2, 2013</a></blockquote><br />Deuteronomy 18:20-22 says: <blockquote>20 “‘However, the prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21 And in case you should say in your heart: “How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?” 22 when the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word does not occur or come true, that is the word that Jehovah did not speak.</blockquote><br />Think he'll agree that to that? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA No way, they will NEVER put their money where their mouth is - this is nothing but a 'make me Richer' scheme, and it will undoubtedly serve that TRUE purpose. If this fails will he admit he is a false prophet? Or will he make excuses?<br /><br />I even go the extra mile:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>I'll even PRAY in Jesus' name to give me one, right now, PLEASE JESUS, Bring me a supernatual experience so I can KNOW @<a href="https://twitter.com/drmikemurdock">drmikemurdock</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/319111834529579011">April 2, 2013</a></blockquote><br />But, despite my excited state of anticipation, nothing supernatural happened:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Wait… what was that… something is happening… oh sorry, I just farted <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23MyBad">#MyBad</a> I'll keep trying @<a href="https://twitter.com/drmikemurdock">drmikemurdock</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/319112187589296128">April 2, 2013</a></blockquote><br />Maybe it didn't work because of my typo?<br /><br /><b><i>UPDATE: It is now April 12th and absolutely nothing happened. Another failure, another false prophet, another liar, another hypocrite.</i></b><br /><br />Oh, the Irony:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The Reason For Their Silence...Is To Hide Information.<br /><br />Never Forget It.<a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23drMM">#drMM</a><a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23fb">#fb</a> </p>&mdash; Dr. Mike Murdock (@drmikemurdock) <a href="https://twitter.com/drmikemurdock/status/322250324905713664">April 11, 2013</a></blockquote><br /><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-40476596771096907612013-04-02T10:20:00.000-05:002013-04-02T11:05:52.962-05:00A Challenge for Jehovah's WitnessesI can't promise this will yield any specific result or outcome but it might be entertaining...<br /><br />If Jehovah's Witnesses come calling, ask them in and go over a few things with them.<br /><br />They tend to use their own 'New World Translation' but you can use any version of the Bible, I've taken these quotes out of their own Bible to help avoid arguments about 'translation'.<br /><br />(1) Ask them if they believe they speak in the name of Jehovah, they should say they do<br /><br />(2) Read and discuss <a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/matthew/24#v-3">Matthew 24:3-5,11,24</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>3 While he was sitting upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately, saying: “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things?” 4 And in answer Jesus said to them: “<b>Look out that nobody misleads ​YOU</b>; 5 for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. <br />...<br />11 And many <b>false prophets will arise and mislead many</b>;<br />...<br />24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the chosen ones.</blockquote><br />Confirm that this is saying that misleading people with false information makes one a false prophet.<br /><br />This is a <a href="http://www.acts17-11.com/fprophecy.html">repeated theme</a> in the Bible, as in <a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/jeremiah/23#v-25">Jeremiah 23:25-29</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>25 “I have heard what the prophets who are <b>prophesying falsehood in my own name</b> have said, saying, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’ 26 How long will it exist in the heart of the prophets who are prophesying the falsehood and who are prophets of the trickiness of their own heart? 27 They are thinking of making my people forget my name by means of their dreams that they keep relating each one to the other, just as their fathers forgot my name by means of Ba′al. 28 The prophet with whom there is a dream, let him relate the dream; <b>but the one with whom my own word is, let him speak forth my word truthfully</b>.”</blockquote><br />(3) hopefully they have agreed with you about false prophets, how to identify them, and that they claim to speak in the name of Jehovah. If so, then ask them about <a href="http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1800s.php">their religions repeated failed prophesy (see details at linked page)</a> about the end times.<br /><br />I'm sure they will hem and haw about it... move on<br /><br />(4) and ask them about <a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/deuteronomy/18#v-20">Deuteronomy 18:20-22</a><br /><br /><blockquote>20 “‘However, the prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21 And in case you should say in your heart: “How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?” 22 when the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word does not occur or come true, that is the word that Jehovah did not speak.</blockquote><br />Have the Jehovah's Witnesses not spoken in the name of Jehovah?<br /><br />Have their predictions not failed to come true?<br /><br />Are they not then false prophets?<br /><br />But because you don't believe that nonsense, you refuse to demand their death for simply being wrong because that would be evil!<br /><br />(5) If you aren't bored yet ask them about <a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/1-kings/18">1 Kings 18</a> and ask if they can provide you with such a demonstration that THEIR claimed god is real.<br /><br />If they protest that you can't "test god" <a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/1-kings/18#v-27">quote E‧li′jah from section [27]</a> and say: <i>“Call at the top of ​YOUR​ voice, for he is a god; for he must be concerned with a matter, and he has excrement and has to go to the privy. Or maybe he is asleep and ought to wake up!”</i><br /><br />Point out that excuses weren't accepted on behalf of other gods and the consequence was (according to the Bible) the mass murder of hundreds of priests.<br /><br /><blockquote><b><a href="http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/1-kings/18#v-40">1 Kings 18:40</a></b> Then E‧li′jah said to them: “Seize the prophets of Ba′al! Do not let a single one of them escape!” At once they seized them, and E‧li′jah then <b>brought them down to the torrent valley of Ki′shon and slaughtered them there.</b></blockquote><br />Ask them if that seems a fair punishment for people who claim speak for a god that refuses to set bull meat on fire when prayed to?<br /><br />Demand an answer to that and they will have to say that it was God's will and so it was right and just, and then point out what hypocrisy it is to refuse to be held to the same standard you're religion claims it has held others to.<br />Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-61194608096394547172013-04-01T16:36:00.001-05:002013-04-02T22:46:32.680-05:00Identifying the Problem: PrejudicesI wanted a checklist to look over periodically to check my cultural biases, so I'm making a list (and you can help me check it twice).<br /><br /><b>What is a prejudice?</b><br /><br />A prejudice is a preconceived opinion which is not based on reason or experience. All prejudices are based on errors of fact and/or logic. If a property of some class is valid and the consequent is sound and it doesn't make or imply a value judgement based on these properties, then it isn't a prejudice.<br /><br />This is NOT ranked or ordered, but here are some of the predominate types of prejudice I was able to identify. Please feel free to point out more in comments!<br /><ul><li><b>Racism</b><br /></li><li><b>Sexism</b><br /></li><li><b>Gender-identity, sexuality, intersex</b> (including LGBTQ*)<br /></li><li><b>Religious discrimination</b> (including against those who choose not to have a religion (especially in the military) and minority religions)<br /></li><li><b>Ableism</b> (discrimination against the disabled)<br /></li><li><b>Mental Illness / Neurotypicalism</b> (multifaceted)<br /></li><li><b>Intelligence</b> (people across the spectrum suffer discrimination & bullying)<br /></li><li><b>Appearance</b> (height, weight, looks, dress)<br /></li><li><b>Linguistic discrimination</b><br /></li><li><b>Ageism</b><br /></li><li><b>Classism/socioeconomic discrimination</b><br /></li><li><b>Nationalism</b><br /></li><li><b>Rape, Abuse, &amp; Violence stigma</b><br /></li><li><b>Political discrimination</b><br /></li><li><b>Discrimination against former felons</b><br /></li><li><b>Prohibitionist prejudices</b> (assuming that all people who wish to explore altered states of consciousness are 'drug fiends', etc)<br /></li></ul>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-74793093827095569342013-03-31T20:58:00.000-05:002014-08-19T17:44:22.267-05:00Embarassingly Poor: proofthatgodexists.orgSomeone pointed me to this site so I thought I would post a review.<br /><br />Let's walk through it.<br /><br />(1) it asks about Truth, I agree that 'Absolute Truth Exists' - in the simplest case things are true by definition or tautology; the three logical absolutes (identity, non-contradiction, excluded-middle) being the root cases of things that seem absolutely true. Note that I don't assert that I know this to be absolutely true, but rather I think these are irrefutable candidates (refuting them would undermine the very logic you need to refute them).<br /><br />(2) it asks about Knowledge, I agree that 'I Know Something To Be True' or I just contradicted myself, violating the law of non-contradiction from (1)<br /><br />(3) it asks if 'Logic' exists, well yes, or I again contradict (1) -- but this term 'exists' is the beginning of their ultimate failure<br /><br />(4) it asks if 'Logic' <i>changes</i> or not... our understanding of logic changes but it seems to be a valid concept even without a human mind so no, 'Logic doesn't change'.<br /><br />(5) now it asks if 'Logic' is made of matter or not... This is a category error because logic is based upon how the state of matter changes, so we've already gone off the rails here and this 'proof' is invalid.<br /><br />But let's explore their false dichotomy.<br /><br />Logic IS 'made of matter' because it is the physics of matter that implements logic (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d1R0zr91Ao">see video</a>). Without matter and the physics of our universe, logic wouldn't 'exist'.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5d1R0zr91Ao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />(6) it then asks if matter 'changes' or not. This depends very deeply on what you mean by 'changes'. Matter itself doesn't really change, the STATE of the system changes, the configuration of the matter changes. But they didn't really put anything meaningful at all in for 'matter doesn't change' (ignoring many possible cases where that might be true).<br /><br />So going with 'Matter changes', it responds <i>"You have admitted that logic does not change, and say that logic is made of matter which changes. This is a contradiction"</i><br /><br />Well that is just utter nonsense. LOGIC is BASED on how the state of matter changes (go <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d1R0zr91Ao">watch the domino video again</a>, the dominoes are DOING logic). Matter is changing (state/configuration) but the LOGIC it implements is unchanged.<br /><br />Let's look at an analogy in a computer. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) in a computer implements an instruction set that doesn't change (the 'logic' of the computer, even in microcode architectures where we can write new macro 'instructions' the fundamental instructions in the CPU still do not change) - you would NOT then be so silly as to say that the state of the computer cannot change or else the instructions would change because computers DO change state without changing the instruction set.<br /><br />Here you hit a dead-end because they refuse to acknowledge that their 'proof' is nonsense.<br /><br />So, we go back up and look at 'Logic is not made of Matter'<br /><br />(7) it then asks if Logic is universal or relative, say 'Universal'<br /><br /><blockquote>To reach this page you have admitted that absolute truth exists, that you can know things to be true, that logic exists, that it is unchanging, that it is not made of matter, and that it is universal.<br /><br />Truth, knowledge, and logic are necessary to prove ANYTHING and cannot be made sense of apart from God. Therefore...</blockquote><br />Um, no. This wasn't 'proven' by this ridiculous exercise in stupidity. They asked a bunch of questions and, without the slightest deductive justification, inserted their conclusion.<br /><br />Furthermore, I do NOT agree that 'logic is not made of matter' but they don't seem to have a "congratulations, you just disproved God" page. Can you prove it or does it just 'seem' that way? How does a concept 'exist' outside of a mind to hold it as a concept? There are a lot of things that COULD exist. Magical Unicorns COULD exist, does that mean they have some transcendent existence that makes them 'real' like 'logic'? Yeah, I don't think so.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-50451388386150508272013-03-31T19:37:00.001-05:002013-03-31T19:53:33.481-05:00Religion offers only morality by assertionThis brief exchange demonstrates:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> Can science prove a moral truth? No? Must not exist then.</p>&mdash; Texafornia (@Tony_Five_O) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tony_Five_O/status/310360348697952258">March 9, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/tony_five_o">tony_five_o</a> can religion prove a moral truth or merely assert it? Your assertions simply do NOT suffice<a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23hypocrisy">#hypocrisy</a></p>&mdash; Dark Star (@ColdDimSum) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdDimSum/status/318361167359787010">March 31, 2013</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/colddimsum">colddimsum</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/gspellchecker">gspellchecker</a> Happy Easter.</p>&mdash; Texafornia (@Tony_Five_O) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tony_Five_O/status/318363300452773888">March 31, 2013</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br />I find it sad (but not at all surprising) that this person is unable to give an intelligible response or just admit that we're in the same boat, and we ARE in the same boat despite his original arrogance. But even if he had responded it would have just been an appeal to the Bible, which doesn't establish anything but poor reasoning skills. A Muslim would have appealed to the Qur'an, a Hindu to the Shastras, and a Zoroastrian to their Avesta.<br /><br />I don't believe in an absolute or objective morality NOR do I accept blanket moral relativism. I would rather proclaim my ignorance on the matter. There <i>might</i> be such a thing as 'objective morality' which we can come to understand someday on the basis of neurological studies and the <a href="http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-might-we-discern-objecitve-moral.html">distinct concept of morality (which I have written about elsewhere)</a>, but I have no argument or evidence that this IS the case today.<br /><br />But just because something is difficult (deciding on universal rights and wrongs for humanity) IN NO WAY implies that all positions are valid or that we must tolerate injustice in the name of ignorance. That is not, in fact, how society works. I also REJECT the idea that morality is only 'one' thing, indeed it seems to be a whole collection of different things all mixed together.<br /><br />Our Empathy strongly compels us to interfere when an innocent person is being harmed (physically or emotionally). When it comes to human interactions, one of the areas we now better understand, is that relationships need to be based on Informed and Empowered Consent - relationships that are not based on informed and empowered consent are abusive. This is a beautiful set of fairly objective criteria that we can use to evaluate complex relationships.<br /><br />What we DO have evidence for is that humans are exceedingly poor at sussing out how we ought to treat one another - and that Religion is more than passingly competent at corrupting what little empathy we have for one another (<a href="http://cl.ly/I22Z/o">see image</a>).<br /><br />What we can do is argue, debate, and create laws to try to ensure that our lives are as safe, prosperous, and equitable as we can make them.<br /><br />But there is a lot of complexity, even in the seemingly 'obvious' areas.<br /><br />For example, look at the concept of 'murder'. <i>Thou shall not murder.</i> Pretty simple right? What about when god commands genocide and infanticide?<br /><br /><blockquote>"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (1 Samuel 15:2-3)</blockquote><br />What about self-defense? What if it's an accident? What if it was a reasonably foreseeable and preventable accident? What if the person has brain damage and isn't in control of themselves? What about protection of an innocent life from imminent danger? Even religious opinion differs somewhat on all of these positions.<br /><br />Early law on murder (such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu">Code of Ur-Nammu</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi">Code of Hammurabi</a>) had little subtlety and meted out the ultimate punishment in retaliation (with the state acting to murder the guilty, often using horrific methods). As we have slowly progressed and learned our laws have evolved along with our understanding, modern law on 'murder' is extremely complex and nuanced as a result.<br /><br />How about Slavery? Surely treating another human being as your property whom you can beat at will (so long they get up 'within a day or two') is something blindingly, obviously, categorically, WRONG? Right? Surely... Well, no, humanity failed at that one for thousands and thousands of years, eventually encoding it into their religious texts as endorsed by their respective 'god'.<br /><br />I don't think there is a clearer or more obvious failure of religious appeals to authority than the calls to slaughter infant children and the endorsement of slavery.<br /><br />These complexities are why a SECULAR morality that presumes our IGNORANCE and strives to grow based on actual knowledge, rather than asserting ABSOLUTE rules, is the superior methodology.Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143444398686195516.post-60842340827783947212013-03-30T15:04:00.002-05:002013-03-30T15:06:37.703-05:00Relativity & GPSGPS satellite atomic clocks must be adjusted by about 38µs/day to stay in sync with Earth-bound clocks due to the effects described by general &amp; special relativity.<br /><br />The time slowing effect of a stronger gravitational field described in general relativity means a clock on Earth runs about 45µs/day slower than the clock in the satellite. While the time dilation effect described in special relativity, due to the relative motion, accounts for the satellite clocks falling further behind by about 7µs/day. The net effect is 45 - 7 = 38.<br /><br />When discussing this in these terms of tiny numbers it might seem like so small of a difference as to be irrelevant to navigation but tiny errors add up. Without taking these effects into account your GPS would be next to useless in a matter of hours and off by about 10 kilometers by the end of the day.<br /><br />Both effects have been experimentally confirmed in numerous different ways with a very high degree of accuracy, giving us an extremely high degree of confidence that the effects are real and not measurement errors and that the theory accurately describes the observed effects and that Classical Mechanics alone cannot account for the observed data.<br /><br />GPS satellites travel at roughly 4000 m/s, you can compute the exact daily cumulative effect on time using this Wolfram Alpha calculator:<br /><br /><script id="WolframAlphaScript4df6317749758cbf0c78f0cc69e61031" src="http://www.wolframalpha.com/widget/widget.jsp?id=4df6317749758cbf0c78f0cc69e61031" type="text/javascript"></script>Dark Starhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04356850749159919331noreply@blogger.com0